Not the Same
by WillowDryad
Summary: Edmund wants to know why he looks nothing like his siblings.  Peter shows him they're more alike than he thinks.  Post LWW.  No slash.


**Disclaimer: Edmund and Peter Pevensie and all the characters and situations in the Chronicles of Narnia belong to C. S. Lewis and not to me.**

NOT THE SAME

"What if I am?"

"What if you're what?"

"What if I'm a- a bas- a what they said?"

Edmund looked at me with those enormous dark eyes of his, and I hated those miserable little weasels for putting so much pain and uncertainty there. It was worse than the cuts and bruises, worse than the scratched cheek and black eye, worse than the scraped knees and torn clothes. Good thing the bullies had scattered when I showed up. I might have forgotten they were all younger than me.

"You wouldn't– Edmund, you _couldn't _think that of Mum. You mustn't."

"No, of course not." He picked at the fresh snag in his jumper. How many times had Mum mended that now? "But, Peter, why–"

He broke off, hissing and gritting his teeth when I touched the wet cloth to the split in his lower lip.

"Shh," I warned. I had only just managed to smuggle him into our room, wanting to try to clean him up a bit before the blood and bruises scared Mum out of her wits. Again.

He trembled a little and held onto my wrist. "But why would they especially say that if it wasn't pretty obvious to . . ."

Again his eyes searched mine, and I wiped away the trickle of blood on his cheek. I sometimes forgot that, no matter what had happened while we were staying at the Professor's, he was still just an eleven-year-old boy. I almost always forgot I was only fourteen.

"They don't like it that you're too strong for them now, Ed. When you tell them you're not going to help them bully the little boys anymore, especially when you protect the little ones _from_ them, it just makes them see what wretched cowards they all are. It makes them angry, and someone who's angry, especially someone who's angry and afraid, will say anything to hurt."

"Afraid?"

I nodded. "They're afraid of you now, Ed. They can't make you do what they want anymore."

He thought about that for a moment while I brushed some bits of grass out of his hair and then soaked away some dried blood from his scalp.

"But they're right," he said finally. "I'm not. I'm not anything like the rest of you. You and Susan and Lucy, you've all got Dad's blue eyes. You and Lucy got his blond hair. I don't look anything like any of you. They said–"

"Who cares what the pack of cretins said? Besides, it's clearly not true." I grinned at him and gently tapped his nose with one finger. "You and Lucy, both of yours just like Dad's."

Edmund sniffled and wiped his nose, bringing his scraped knuckles back with even more blood and grime on them.

"And you have Susan's 'fairest of them all' skin."

Edmund scowled at that. It was a sore point for him just now. But then he smiled a bit, too, if reluctantly, and even blushed faintly. I hated to think what he might have done if I'd told him my real thought, that he had more than a little of Susan's beauty, just as he had her porcelain skin and ebony hair. I decided to save that for when he next needs tormenting and not comforting.

I took one of his hands and started wiping off the dirt and blood and grass marks.

He looked pleadingly at me. "But, you and me. There's nothing–"

So that was it.

I looked at us both in the floor-length mirror that stood in the corner of our room. We did look nothing alike. It must be hard for him, to always be compared, to never feel he could be good enough, to never be the golden one. It was no easier on me.

_Oh, Eddie, if you only knew how golden I'm not._

"Remember how it was in Narnia?" I asked him as I wiped the grime from his face.

He nodded, clearly puzzled at the turn in the conversation.

"Remember how good we were together?"

Again he nodded.

"Remember how much you were all the things I couldn't be? How great you were at everything I was just wretched at? And how much I could have never done without you?"

This time he only looked at me, tears pooling in his dark eyes.

"I wouldn't want you to be any different," I told him at last. "Would you want me to be?"

He threw his arms around me and shook his head violently against my chest.

"Besides, look." I tried to pry him away from me, but by now he was hanging on tight. "Look, Eddie."

I finally got him to turn towards the mirror, and then I wrapped my arms around him from behind, leaning down to put my chin on his shoulder so my face was next to his.

"Can't you see?"

He frowned, puzzled, obviously seeing no resemblance between light and dark, between gold and ebony, between Magnificent Peter and Just (only, merely, simply) Edmund. He didn't know that what I saw was sometimes-not-so-Magnificent Peter and Just (totally, uniquely, utterly) Edmund, brother-king and co-conspirator, protector and protected, friend above any other, Aslan's redeemed, His gift back to me, to our sisters, to Narnia herself.

"I don't see any resemblance at all," he said, his dark eyes bewildered.

"Sure you do."

"What–"

I hugged him to me. "We have exactly the same heart."

**~O~O~O~O~If you liked this story and would like more, please leave me a review.~O~O~O~O~**


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